"Healthy Wetlands" – A Master Naturalist Creates Journeys Through Southwood Nature Preserve

By Sage Passi


Maplewood Middle School 7th graders experience a wetland at Southwood Nature Preserve.

“No Child Left Inside” is beginning to take root in North St. Paul thanks to the efforts of Master Naturalist, Cathy Troendle who dedicates her time to fostering encounters with the natural world for young people in her community. 

Master Naturalist, Cathy Troendle, The Master Mind for the
journeys through Southwood Nature Preserve.

One of Troendle’s visions for a hands-on learning opportunity for young people at Southwood Nature Preserve in North St. Paul recently sprang to life on May 12 when the entire Maplewood Middle School seventh grade (230 students) jumped into action in a field day that she developed to help them immerse themselves in a nearby environment while learning about the ecological and water quality issues at their local wetland. Cathy, a seasoned volunteer educator, has been providing classroom and field lessons for third through fifth grade students at Cowern School in North St. Paul for the past five years.

The wonders of wetlands.

Troendle’s teaching repertoire includes creating and offering lessons in multiple classrooms for each of these grades in the fall, winter and spring as well as coordinating field trips to the park to investigate prairie and woodland habitats, birds, mammals and frogs. The hands-on experiences she orchestrates in the spring introduce students to plant identification and animal tracking and engage them in the recording of a variety of ecological perimeters including soil temperature, pH and light conditions at the preserve. Her approach builds in elements of play, inquiry, observation and immersion in the out-of-doors.

Experiencing wonder.

The Norwegians have a word for it….. “Friluftsliv” 


Sometimes you need to look elsewhere to find models for this teaching approach. There is a word for this kind of learning in Norwegian. It’s called friluftsliv (frí-loofts-live) which literally translates as “free air life.” The successful connection between child development and the outdoors can be seen clearly in Scandinavian educational systems. In Finland, for example , where they build in ample opportunities to be in the out-of-doors, their educational system consistently ranks as one of the world’s top three countries in academic performance while U.S. schools place well below Finland — 20th in the world, according to the United Nations. The correlation between child development and making connections with nature still remains a frontier in the academic world, but evidence is growing.


According to author, Richard Louv, co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Children & Nature Network, an organization that supports the international movement to connect children, their families and their communities to the natural world, the more high tech schools are becoming the more they need nature. Louv, author of eight books, including "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" and "The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age," contends that it is ultimately most effective for us “to live simultaneously in both the digital and physical worlds, using computers to maximize our powers to process intellectual data and natural environments to ignite our senses and accelerate our ability to learn and feel. “ 


You can read more about Louv’s thoughts and research in this area in his article, “The Hybrid Mind: The More High Tech Schools Become, The More Nature They Need, “ published after his keynote address in November 2013 in Boston at a Learning and the Brain Conference, Engaging 21st Century Minds: Using Brain Science, Technology, Nature and Collaboration for Deeper Learning. http://tinyurl.com/qe72pjn

Project WET Coordinator, Janine Kohn (right) invites a young visitor to check out a crayfish the seventh-graders collected.  Deb Armstrong (left) a retired teacher and Master Naturalist who lives in North St. Paul, frequently takes her grandchild for a stroll through the Preserve.

Louv reports that schools that do use outdoor classrooms and other forms of nature-based experiential education report significant student gains in social studies, science, language arts, and math. Students in Finland, for example lead the world in math and science scores; in that country, it’s an article of faith that the best education includes time spent in the classroom — with lots of recess and learning time outdoors.



Taking a close-up look at pond life.

Since she began teaching at Cowern in 2009, Troendle nurtured a dream of developing something experiential outdoors for Maplewood Middle School students. 

" I wasn't seeing any young people in the parks or preserves, " says Cathy.  " I did an informal survey of students at the school that lived less than a mile from the school and found out that 75% didn't even know the preserve was there and those that did really liked going there."

Because Southwood Nature Preserve is within easy walking distance to that school, she approached their principal three years ago and gradually, after intensive planning and coordination, her plans for a learning event came together, thanks to her persistence, dedication, creative problem solving and resourcefulness, not to mention all her many volunteer hours! Now Cathy plans to repeat this field day in the spring of 2015.

Left: What is that crazy looking thing?  Capturing and identifying aquatic life.
Right: Closer than you think, Southwood Nature Preserve is easily accessible with parking right on
Holloway Ave. west of Century Ave. (https://goo.gl/maps/wU0xO)

Besides being an experienced educator, Troendle has good skills as a networker. Ten classroom teachers were engaged at the site during the May field day. She also recruited twenty one volunteers including other Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, Watershed District and Maplewood Nature Center staff, Project Wet staff from the MN DNR, University students and Audubon volunteers who donated their time to help students journey through five field stations.

The volunteer team at the Maplewood Middle School Field Day.

This powerhouse of volunteers assisted students in getting acquainted with the variety of habitats at the site, learning about the ecological issues and evaluating the water quality in the wetland.




Lead Naturalist at Maplewood Nature Center, Ann Hutchinson, encourages a student to discover hidden
macroinvertebrate life in the pond.  Curiosity is spawned.

Learning stations were set up by volunteers to incorporate hands on activities that included buckthorn busting, simulating the challenges of bird migration, investigating monarch habitats, techniques of birding and the use of binoculars and wetland monitoring. Several service learning opportunities were built into the day including pulling buckthorn and removing invasive Canada Goldenrod.

Clockwise from upper left.  Tackling buckthorn at Southwood Nature Preserve.  Competing with classmates for who could get the longest goldenrod root out of the ground while working to preserve monarch butterfly habitat.  Experiencing the challenges of migration.  The "bird" who successfully migrated. 

I hope that the positive outdoor experiences at Southwood Nature Preserve provide evidence to educators about the value of offering these kinds of opportunities to help stimulate their students’ senses and curiosity in the natural world. As Louv concludes, “Few today would question the notion that every person, especially every young person, has a right to access the Internet, whether through a school district, a library, or a city’s public Wi-Fi program. We accept the idea that the divide between the digital haves and have-nots must be closed. But all children also have a right to develop a wider spectrum of their senses and mental abilities, to know the real world, and to be fully alive.”

***********************************************************************

Looking for another up-coming opportunity to explore Southwood Nature Preserve and spend time observing its wildlife? Check out this June event.


Friends of Frogs Hike at Southwood Nature Preserve June 20

Frogs are excellent indicators of wetland health. Join Biologist Carole Gernes for an entertaining and educational evening class at Southwood Nature Preserve in North St. Paul (https://goo.gl/maps/wU0xO) on Friday, June 20, from 8:30 to 9:45 p.m.

Southwood Nature Preserve is home to at least five species of frogs.
Photo courtesy of Carole Gernes.

Learn to identify frog and toad species by their calls. Receive a free Minnesota DNR frog poster, instructions for making a frog call, a phenology check list and a list of good areas to hear frogs.


Dress for the weather and bring a water bottle. Wear long pants long-sleeved shirts to prevent mosquito bites, and good shoes for hiking. Recommended for ages 6 and up, with an adult. Please RSVP to laurie.koehnle[at]northstpaul.org or call 651.747.2504.



“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard



Church Rain Gardens Are On a Roll In the District

By Sage Passi



Maplewood Lead Naturalist, Ann Hutchinson, advises French Immersion students
on how to plant at Redeeming Love Church.




The bells doth toll,

Church rain gardens

are on a roll.

With rains like last night’s

they could be full.

All right, I admit this is rather “soggy” poetry. It’s Sunday, it’s sunny, we’ve had way too much rain, the weeds are a mile high, it’s the middle of June and my own gardens are all crying out for help, but the news must get out. So what’s been happening on the church front? And what’s been happening on the weather front? The two questions, after all, are very much related.


A couple of weeks ago four of the rain gardens at Redeeming Love that I had committed to planting the next day with a group of classes sadly looked like this photo below.

A typical rainy date sight in the world of rain gardens.  They are doing what they are supposed to do - capture water!

 
Oh me of little faith. Not a reason for panic. Just a glitch in the schedule. I knew we couldn’t get them marked and ready for planting the next day, but I was relieved to know that by the end of the day all these rain gardens behind the church had drained properly. Watching them perform well the rest of the rainy week increased my confidence and the rescheduled planting a week later went off without a hitch.

Farnsworth Aerospace fourth-graders planting four
rain gardens at Redeeming Love Church.

I’m happy to report that now most of the rain gardens at Redeeming Love Church near White Bear Avenue and Highway 36 in Maplewood constructed last fall are planted, thanks to the efforts of Outdoor Lab contractor Chuck Hanna, his staff and seventy-five fourth graders from Farnsworth Aerospace and L’Etoile du Nord Schools in St. Paul who helped with the gardens out behind the church. Special applause for the expert assistance of staff from Maplewood Nature Center. It’s no small task marking and preparing these large gardens and getting ready for a planting - it took a couple of days of hard work so hats off to Ann Hutchinson, Oakley Biesanz and their intern for their diligence and organizational skills in helping taking the lead on this. Many thanks also to the Ramsey County Master Gardeners and one Master Naturalist and the teachers who spent the next day in the hot sun, helping students put about a thousand plugs in the ground.

Ramsey County Master Gardener, Kristina DeLaundreau, helps Farnsworth
students plant little bluestem at Redeeming Love Church.

 
I’ve got an offer from Ramsey Conservation District to help me put the finishing touches on these rain gardens next week along with some Girls Scouts so from here on out it’s all about fending off the little goslings standing watch for lunch on the outskirts of the rain gardens, keeping them weeded and sitting back and watching the seedlings thrive!

Pastor Jerchah Heurh, church volunteers, and Master Gardeners Kris Baird and
Jan House hard at work in the rain garden at First Hmong Assembly of God.

A special thank you also goes to Ramsey County Master Gardeners, Kris Baird and Jan House and Master Naturalist Brian Larson who helped me coordinate the planting of the third rain garden at First Hmong Assembly of God in east St. Paul with their team of 10 multigenerational church volunteers who were recruited by Pastor Jerchah Heurh. It was fun to discover that one of the youngest planters from that church was a Farnsworth student we worked with at the planting at Keller Golf Course this spring.

Left: A completed rain garden behind First Hmong Assembly of God.
Right: Brian Larson, Master Naturalist, plants alongside volunteers at First Hmong Assembly of God.

We are happy to announce that three other churches in the Watershed District that have submitted their applications for upcoming rain garden projects that will tap into our state Clean Water Legacy funds and our BMP cost share program are Grace Church and Prince of Peace Church in Roseville and Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood. Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in Maplewood intends to submit their application in July. So we are rounding the bend on this grant project and feeling hopeful that we are making a dent in helping improve water quality in these impaired sub-watersheds through the implementation of infiltration projects on church grounds. Kudos to Paige Ahlborg, our Project Manager and Ramsey Conservation District and Barr Engineering staff for their work in recruitment and developing concept plans and designs.



Rule #1: Never plant a rain garden alone. Those
saturated soils can be like quicksand! 
Photo courtesy of Laura Niederhofer.

 At the far south end of the District in Woodbury, another rain garden project was recently planted by church volunteers at Christ Episcopal Church. Since I wasn’t there to witness the process, they contributed a number of photos. I’ve included one here that Carole Pastorius, our Administrative Secretary shared with me. She said it reminded her of an experience she had in one of the Watershed District’s rain gardens shortly after we moved into our new office. On the day of our open house event, she spied a pop can in one of our street rain gardens and she stepped into the garden to retrieve it. She said she sunk into what seemed like quick sand and asked a passer by to help pull her out!  The volunteer planting at this church rain garden  experienced the same thing.  


We want to say a big thank you to the volunteers that have made these gardens happen.  We have made a lot of positive progress in terms of stormwater management and habitat creation, all while meeting some great folks along the way! 

Mystery of the Month - June 2014

Record Rainfall & Flooding

By Cliff Aichinger

Significant flow in a surface overflow channel.
(Do not attempt. Professional children on a closed course.) 

If you think we have had a lot of rain recently, you’re right. This spring is the second wettest year-to-date since 1871. I didn’t even know they kept records that far back.

****UPDATE: In the short bit of time between press time and now, we have surpassed the previous front-runner to become the wettest spring (wettest June as well) in recorded history. ****


We get numerous calls and questions about water runoff, rainfall, lake levels, wet basements, and more. I don’t expect residents to understand weather and stormwater, but it is always surprising to me that many people do not put rainfall and water issues together.


Typically, Minnesotans are very conscious of the weather, but I have learned that most people are interested in weather as it affects their outdoor activities, but often don’t connect it with flooding issues or things like wet basements. I have even had lakeshore residents complain about high lake levels and not connect it with recent heavy rainfall events.

Flooding on McKnight Rd at Hwy 36.

Over the years we have learned some basic things about rainfall and water issues, but we are continually challenged to try to anticipate and hopefully eliminate the flooding of living structures from flooding lakes, streams, or wetlands. Cities and the District do not try to prevent temporary flooding of yards, ball fields or parks. These areas are needed to temporarily store flood waters.


This year’s weather has presented us with an interesting twist on the usual situation. Typically after a high snow year (like last winter) we would be concerned about spring flooding along river systems. It didn’t happen this year due to a good long duration snowmelt. However, what did happen in the upland areas is that the snowmelt thoroughly saturated the ground. When we received our heavy rains at the end of April and early May, there was a high amount of stormwater runoff, because it couldn’t soak into the ground (infiltrate). This also further raised the surficial ground water levels and caused a number of wet yards and basements that very rarely are wet. We have heard stories of wet basements that have never been wet in 30 or 40 years. Many of these have water coming through the floor and not the walls. This is ground water pressure pushing water up against the concrete floor. This won’t change until the ground water level goes down.


Then we received several additional large rainfall events throughout May to add to our problems. At one point in May I remember the weatherman say that there were only a couple of days without some rain over a several week period. We are still seeing lakes at one to two feet above normal levels. Several boating restrictions are on area lakes to limit damage to shorelines from wakes. Lake Minnetonka now has a no-wake restriction over the entire lake. Lake Gervais has had no-wake restrictions twice this spring.


Does this have anything to do with climate change? 


It actually does. We are seeing more and more extreme events and weather patterns. We have recently seen the high amounts of rainfall, but other areas of the country have seen not only extremely high rainfall, but more tornadoes. The west has seen extreme fluctuations in weather and a continuing draught.

 

Tanners Lake water reaches dangerously close to homes in
 a 1997 high-water situation.

A major study was recently completed to analyze the past 30 years of weather data and produce new values for what is considered our critical rainfall amounts and durations. Many of you may be familiar with what we call the 100 year storm event or the 1% chance storm. I often hear people comment that we seem to be getting the 100 year event every year. They are not far off. We used to design our projects and conduct or modeling based on data published in a report called “TP 40.” This TP 40 data was based on rainfall data from before 1970. This report said that in this area of Minnesota, a 6.4-inch rainfall event over 24 hours was a 100 year event. There were also standards for shorter duration events (2 hour, 4, hour, etc.). The new study, Atlas 14, is showing that we should be planning for a 7.9 inch 100 year frequency 24-hour duration event. That additional rainfall is very significant.


Over the past 25 years, the District has completed several projects to address flooding problems identified by our modeling using the TP 40 data. We are now in the process of reevaluating our watershed modeling using this new information to see if additional structures or infrastructure are in danger of being flooded. If there are new structures in jeopardy, we will be working with our communities to prepare plans for improvements to protect the structures or preparing contingency plans to protect these properties.


The scary thing is that this new Atlas 14 information is looking into the past. We know we are continuing to experience changes in our weather patterns that may be worse in the years to come. The problem is that we have a built environment with constructed streets, and storm sewer systems. These systems cannot be changed easily to respond to our new weather patterns. Retrofitting these systems will be difficult and expensive and it takes time. The best we can do is usually to plan for the best overland drainage possible without causing damage to property or infrastructure.

 
We are responding to these issues as best we can and will be working with our cities and counties to make every attempt to safeguard our residents. 



13th St.  in North St. Paul near Postal Credit Union Pond

In our past planning and modeling efforts, we have identified the flooding issues and areas that are of concern. We have completed several capital projects and emergency response plans to solve or respond to flooding events.

Environmental Initiative Awards

The Environmental Initiative is a Minnesota non-profit whose mission is to build the partnerships needed to address complex environmental problems. One of their major programs each year is to recognize major programs and projects that honor collaborative environmental projects from across Minnesota. Through a nominations and judging process, finalists are selected and are presented at the Annual Awards event. The District nominated two projects: The Maplewood Mall Volume Reduction Retrofit Project and the Maplewood Living Streets Project. Both projects were selected as finalists.


A good contingency of staff and managers attended the event on May 22 at the Nicollet Island Pavilion. It was a beautiful night and an exciting and fun event. There were 6 categories of awards with three finalists in each category. They were all excellent projects and all deserving of recognition. The event was run like the Academy Awards where each finalist project was reviewed and recognized and the final award winner announced. The event emcee was Frank Vascellaro, evening news anchor at WCCO.



The Maplewood Mall Project was a finalist in the Natural Resources category along with The St. Louis River Area of Concern Remedial Action Plan and the Clearwater River Watershed Targeted Fertilizer Application Program. The Living Streets Project was a finalist in the Community Action category with the Frogtown Park and Farm and Project Sweetie Pie from North Minneapolis.


Unfortunately, neither of our projects were winners, but two very deserving projects were. The Clearwater River Watershed District project and Project Sweetie Pie were the award winners in their categories. Project Sweetie Pie was also selected as the Partnership of the Year. It was very tough competition, but we all felt honored to be a finalist and recognized at the event in front of 480 attendees. This year’s event marked the 20th anniversary of the event and had the largest attendance.

May 24th Celebration : 'Water Is Life' and 'Rainy Day,' two public art installations at Maplewood Mall

By Sage Passi

The leaf blades of the Water is Life sculpture, created by Cecilia Schiller and
Willis Bowman silhouetted against the sky at Maplewood Mall.

On a beautiful spring evening on May 24 in 1983, I gave birth to my daughter, Crystal. I watched her grow up to be an artist and somehow it feels fitting to witness the unveiling of two new works of art on that same day, thirty one years later. This time around there’s lots to be celebrated again. Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District invites the public to the dedication ceremonies for two new public art installations, Water is Life and Rainy Day, at the Maplewood Mall on Saturday, May 24 from 11 AM to 1:00 PM. These works are real labors of love.

The mural Rainy Day, created by David Aichinger, Jessica Turtle, and
Christy Schwartz is enjoyed by St. Peter School visitors.

The stunning public art pieces at Maplewood Mall have been birthed over the past year and a half. The designers/crafters of these two projects have dedicated innumerable hours, tapped into their creativity and energy, masterminded their way around numerous challenges and teamed up to bring their vision and message to light. Their artworks highlight themes about the interactions between water, nature and the built environment.

The Water is Life sculpture waits to be unveiled.  The wood trunk of the tree
(wrapped in a tarp) harbors musical chimes underneath the bark that play when
the turbine leaves rotate.

The festivities will begin at the mall’s west entrance (near Kohl’s) at 11:00 AM with the unveiling of the interactive sculpture Water is Life, followed by a procession through the mall to the east entrance at 11:30 for a ceremony to honor the completion of the mural, Rainy Day. Performances by students from Farnsworth Aerospace, Harding High Earth Club and St. Peter’s School with original poetry will be the centerpieces of the celebration. A reception with an opportunity to mingle with the artists follows.

St. Peter's fourth graders rehearse for the art dedication ceremony on
May 24th at Maplewood Mall.

Artist Cecilia Schiller, together with Willis Bowman, created Water is Life, an interactive, water driven, tree-shaped sculpture to encourage the community to share in the responsibility of protecting water and keeping it clean. The Tree of Life sculpture is activated by rainwater from the roof that drains into a turbine, rotates the branches and plays a melody on chimes inside the trunk. Viewers can also make the sculpture move by turning a wheel on a crank box adjacent to it.

Cecilia and Bowman set up the sculpture at
Maplewood Mall's west entrance.

Rainy Day, the large tile mural provides a dramatic backdrop for the Watershed
District's stormwater management features.

Schiller’s idea for the sculpture was developed over the course of a year by interacting with watershed district staff, volunteers and community members and exploring sites and waterways within the watershed. Its Tree of Life motif carries the message about the interconnections between water and life. Ultimately she chose the location at Maplewood Mall for its unique challenge to use rainwater in creative ways and the opportunity it offered to reach a large and diverse audience while promoting ideas of innovative water stewardship efforts and their benefits in a fun, inviting way.

Tessera Mosaics artists, David Aichinger, Jessica Turtle and Christy Schwartz created the large colorful, playful ceramic and stone tile mural, Rainy Day to draw attention to the interplay between nature and the built environment. Created as a backdrop for the Watershed District’s dramatically decorated cistern and the rain garden surrounding it at the mall’s east entrance, the mural entices visitors to find images embedded in the design that include a belted kingfisher, honeybees, walleye, sunfish, ferns, a mushroom, a lizard, 3 ants carrying a pretzel, a turtle with a crayfish, a western bluebird as well as many other creatures and plants that share the local environment with humans.

A spider, one of the many smaller images
incorporated in the mural.

The mural challenges the audience to contemplate their own actions in the environment. At the same time it inspires an appreciation of the beauty and capacity of long- rooted plants in the mall’s rain gardens to help water soak into the ground and keep downstream lakes and the Mississippi River safe from potentially harmful pollutants that would otherwise run off from the mall’s parking lots, rooftops and roads. Their work helped inspire the poetry that St. Peter’s students will be performing at the event.

St Peter's students write in their journals about the mural's messages.

Schiller received an initial grant to develop a preliminary design in 2012 and additional funding from Forecast Public Art St. Paul in 2013 to build and install Water Is Life at Maplewood Mall. Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District gave input and matching funds. The Jerome Foundation provided additional funds. The Rainy Day mural was funded by Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District.

Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District is partnering with Maplewood Mall, Harding High School Earth Club, St. Peter School and Farnsworth Aerospace School for this event. 

We hope to see you there!!  It will be a great time for folks of all ages.

For more information contact Sage Passi, Watershed Education Specialist at sage.passi[at]rwmwd.org or at 612-598-9163.

The Many Languages of Water: Celebrate Water Is Life at WaterFest! May 31

By Sage Passi

Dej yug siav. Biyo waa nolol. Agua es Vida. L’eau est la vie! In any language, Water is Life!

Harding High Earth Club rehearses at their school for the Water is Life 
celebration at WaterFest.

Join in the festivities at WaterFest to celebrate the many languages of water. Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District and the City of St. Paul invite you to participate in the Water is Life celebration and procession that begins at 11:00 AM on the bridge north of the Pavilion in Phalen Park on Saturday, May 31. Then follow the parade to the dedication celebration at the west side of the lake at the waterfall that has recently been restored by St. Paul. For the rest of the day take part in the many varied activities of WaterFest throughout the park on St. Paul’s Get Out of Doors Day!

Harding High heads off to the Lake Phalen waterfall in late April
to practice for the waterfall dedication ceremony. 

Harding High Earth Club students, Farnsworth Aerospace third and fourth grades and a class from St. Peter School will kick off WaterFest with a ceremony on the bridge that honors the many personalities, roles and seasonal attributes of water. Water drawn from the many lakes, creeks and wetlands in the District will be symbolically merged to acknowledge that “water connects us all.” Bev Blomgren and Sage Passi have been working with students for several months to create performances for both WaterFest and a dedication ceremony at Maplewood Mall for the interactive Water is Life sculpture and the Rainy Day mural unveiling on Saturday, May 24. **Read more about the Maplewood Mall Ceremony here **



Bev Blomgren coaches Farnsworth students who will be
performers in the Water is Life celebration.  The "Eagle"
puppet is one of the many characters in the production.

Water is water.



It is fog, frost and sea.

When autumn comes chasing,

Water comes racing.

Water can be a

Leaf river

A fire snuffer

An eagle flyway

A salmon highway.

Farnsworth fouth-graders dramatize water's ability to "snuff out" fire.

The limestone walled waterfall at Lake Phalen on the western side of the lake was created in the 1950’s. “Originally, there was a well dug with it, and water flowed from the well to Lake Phalen to supplement the water levels, which were receding at times,” says Brian Murphy, St. Paul’s landscape architect who directed the redesign efforts.

The waterfall on Lake Phalen's western shore was built in the 1950s.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Dormant for many decades, the waterfall will be “turned on” at WaterFest to circulate water to and from the lake.

Harding High Earth Club prepare for the waterfall dedication
ceremony on May 31st.

A lift station for the waterfall will draw water from Lake Phalen through an intake structure located in the lake. The water will be pumped up the hill to the upper basin and cascade to the lower basin. There are two channels with decorative grates that lead from the lower basin through the plaza to a cascade at the shore where the water will return to the lake.

Shannen Lachkameya, Harding High's Earth
Club advisor and a student in front of one
of the grates that carries water from the
waterfall to the lake.

Efforts to restore the waterfall began several years ago with the development of the updated Phalen-Keller Regional Park master plan, a document that offers guidance for the future of the two adjoining parks that draw more than 1 million people annually. 

Watch on our website, www.rwmwd.org, for schedules and maps showing the Waterfall Dedication and other exhibits at this year's WaterFest on May 31st! 

Mystery of the Month - May

By Sage Passi

The former Phalen Creek valley - now Heritage Park.

 

What happened to Phalen Creek? 

The tale of this hidden stream lurks beneath the surface, sometimes emerging, then vanishing underground while bringing along with it a cast of characters.

Tunnel Vision – Inside the History of Phalen Creek

Phalen Creek (1910).  Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

If you've lived on the east side of St. Paul for eighty plus years and done things like take the street car to White Bear Lake or witness the building of the tunnel that replaced the trout stream that ran through the Phalen Creek valley a hundred years ago, then step right up. You are my kind of person. I’d like to interview you. I've always had a fascination with making the invisible visible. Call me a reverse magician, if you will. John Emkovikis, a long time resident of the East Side of St. Paul, I am told, is one of those people who could bring those buried stories out into the open. I was encouraged to meet this walking “history channel” by Kathy Sidles, another east-sider who is an advocate for the preservation and protection of the green corridor that connects the Phalen Chain of Lakes with the Mississippi River flood plain downstream. But, like the creek he is elusive (at least for the moment) so I’ll have to be patient and rely upon some other sources of information. Thank goodness for Google……

Kathy Sidles pitches the protection of the green corridors along Bruce Vento
Trail to L'Etoile du Nord fifth-graders as they explore the old pathway of Phalen Creek.

Kathy, this spring, while helping kids pick up trash in the ravine that used to host this old winding Phalen Creek, told me about this friend of hers who has some first-hand stories about this now “invisible” creek that ran from the south end of Lake Phalen to the river.


“Ask him about the swimmer who was catching fish in his pants,”... Kathy challenged me. 

I asked our local GTN filmmaker Chuck Turning if he would help me interview John. But my phone calls to John this weekend didn't get me anywhere yet, so this journalistic rendezvous is has been put on my short bucket list. When Chuck and I collect John’s stories, if that comes to pass, we’ll certainly bring them to light. In the meantime, I've had to delve into some other resources.


“What happens to the water when it leaves Phalen Lake?” is a question I often pose to groups of students when we are exploring the watershed’s pathways. The answer to Phalen Creek’s story lies buried somewhere in the layers of geography, geology and the history of St. Paul’s development over the past hundred and fifty years.


Phalen Creek, for many years was a spring fed stream that rumbled out of the lake, through a ravine and valley (known as Swede Hollow today), through a mile wide gap in the white sandstone cliffs above the Mississippi River and then down through a wetland to the river below. Surrounded by trees and wetlands, it served as a corridor for songbirds and other wildlife. In the 1800’s the local Dakota, who lived in valleys near the river, traveled this creek from the Mississippi River on their way up to Lake Phalen and then to Lake Gervais and Gervais Creek where they had their summer hunting and fishing grounds. In the early eighteen forties they told Benjamin Gervais, the French Canadian voyageur, about this route. He had a claim near Fort Snelling, was looking for more land and they told him to follow the creek up north from the Mississippi River to a place where he could start a farm and build a mill.


Much earlier, according to Steve Trimble, who published an article for the Minnesota Historical Society in Saint Paul Historical says that, “When Father Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan priest and explorer was paddling up the Mississippi in 1680, his group met a Dakota war party who detained him and beached his canoe at the creek’s confluence with the Mississippi River. He is usually considered the first European person to visit Phalen Creek.”


Phalen Creek, named after the nefarious Edward Phalen , a trapper who had a land claim on the creek and was accused of perjury, murder and left town), was heralded by various other names including McCloud Creek and Mill Creek. In 1844 Phalen sold his claim to William Dugas, who built Saint Paul's first saw and grist mill there. Horace Winchell, a local geologist documented many mills located at one time along its stretch.


In the creek’s ravine, later known as Swede Hollow, immigrants arriving first from Sweden in the 1850’s, then from Italy, Poland and eventually Mexico settled along its banks. While these residents drew their drinking water from artesian wells, they used the creek for washing, watering their small gardens and put their outhouses on stilts across the stream.

Outhouses sat on stilts above Phalen Creek that ran through Swede Hollow.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Here’s a quote from a former resident of Swede Hollow, Nels M. Hokanson,

“In Swede Hollow residents instituted cleanup days…Women and boys raked the garbage strewn alleys. Later…the boys waded in the creek to keep the mass of refuse in the center until it disappeared in the tunnel. When the day was over, Swede Hollow was neater and cleaner than it had been in a long time.”

I’m glad to say we have a different approach today to keep this refuse out of the storm sewers that have replaced what was once known as Phalen Creek.
 



Clean-ups 2014 style.  French Immersion fifth-graders pick up trash along
the Bruce Vento Trail, in the ravine of the old Phalen Creek

The water that would have traveled along this route is now piped through a sewer or directed to the soil below by BMPs (Best Management Practices) such as the rain gardens and pervious pavement in Heritage Park and other points along the way.



French Immersion fifth-graders test out the
pervious parking lot in Heritage Park in St. Paul,
created in the former Phalen Creek valley.

To decipher more of Phalen Creek’s history, tracing the creek’s route backwards from the river to the lake and looking at its geological past is helpful.



Phalen Creek bypassed these white cliffs and ran through a gap in the hills to the Mississippi River.

Author, geologist, historian and urban speleologist (cave scientist) Greg Brick describes the creek’s history in his book, Subterranean Twin Cities.

“Geologists surmise that this gap, where the creek found its way to the river, was carved by a preglacial precursor of the Mississippi, flowing down from the north. The Mississippi has changed course several times in the past million years or so and has only lately carved its present gorge. The topographic depression left by the previous river became the place of post glacial drainage. Phalen Creek ran through the gap, together with its largest tributary, Trout Brook.

“The Mississippi floodplain is a muddy place and was even more so before engineers tamed the river. Imagine a stream of water from the surrounding uplands directed down on top of all that mud, and you get an idea of what the early Trout Brook-Phalen Creek delta was like. No wonder it was described as a “bottomless bog” in Josiah B. Chaney’s classic Early Bridges and Changes of the Land and Water Surface in the City of St. Paul.” -Greg, Brick, Subterranean Twin Cities

Here are some other facts about the creek that emerged from perusing Friend’s of the Mississippi River Field Guide.

A train coming from the south of Fort Snelling, 1890.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

“The Phalen Creek and Trout Brook streams flowed into what was a cove of the river in high water. Boats could penetrate to where Third Street is now in high water, but in low water it was an impenetrable marsh. Back in the mid to late 1800’s the railroads, anxious to expand their reach, were looking for a way to build railway yards in this delta. In the 1860's, trestles were run across this marshy area and between the line of sandbars along the river's shore. The land between these tracks and the firm shore was filled. The bluff between the upper and lower landings was blasted back to allow railroad construction and Dayton's Bluff was cut back. Later construction of Shepard and Warner Roads finished filling the marsh.” FMR’s Mississippi River Field Guide

Brick, in Subterranean Twin Cities goes on to say, 



“Bridging the streams would have required expensive stone-arch culverts. So instead, in one of the most dramatic cut and fill jobs in municipal history, Baptist Hill, a mound of glacial debris fifty feet high, formerly located where Mears Park is today was carted eastward after the Civil War under the direction of city engineer David La Curtice and dumped to fill the creek’s delta wetland. In the process, Phalen Creek and Trout Brook were left at their original lower level- already well on their way to becoming subterranean.”

In 1893 city engineer George Wilson undertook the task of putting the lower reaches of these two streams underground. This became known as the Canal Street sewer. An article published by Wilson in Engineering News in 1894 describes intricate details of the underground sewer such as Platteville Limestone rubble-masonry walls, granite floor and “gargoyles, curiously wrought iron spouts that vomit water in the tunnel.” Construction of this sewer system continued into the twentieth century. So meanwhile what happened to the rest of the creek?



A section of Phalen Creek open sewer between Third Street and East
Sixth St. being enclosed, St. Paul, 1936.  Photo Courtesy of the
Minnesota Historical Society.

The Phalen outlet on the southwest shore
of the lake during high-water.

Unless you are a student of watershed maps you might not know about Lake Phalen’s rather innocuous outlet at its southwest corner where the creek once exited the lake. Today there is a larger outlet and pipe system that carries this water into the Beltline Interceptor and into the Mississippi River. This large network of sewer pipes holds some of the secrets of the creek’s transformation. The Belt Line tunnel, constructed in the 1920’s to capture storm sewer run-off from the East Side of St. Paul, is almost 5 miles long. It was named after the Twin City Belt Railway. The Beltline Interceptor extends from the outlets of Lake Phalen and Beaver Lake to the Mississippi River. It is an important part of the District's drainage infrastructure - it not only collects a large percentage of stormwater runoff from St. Paul's east side, but also conveys runoff from the entire Phalen Chain of Lakes Subwatershed and the Beaver Lake Subwatershed to the Mississippi River. Large sections of the Beltline Interceptor are cast-in-place concrete “horseshoe” pipe, with heights of 7, 8, 9, and 12 feet, and buried up to 30 feet underground. Its velocity can be quite intense. The design discharge for the beltline is 2,000 cubic feet per second.

So why did the creek get put underground?

One answer lies in what was happening during major storms in Lowertown in downtown St. Paul. During especially heavy rains Lowertown used to flood very badly. Brick explains,

“The problem was focused at the meeting of the waters, the junction of Trout Brook with Phalen Creek. Water couldn’t get through the tunnels fast enough and backed up into the adjacent streets. When the waters of Como Lake got plugged into the Trout Brook system, a new difficulty must have been created: a much greater volume of water was channeled into Lowertown during rainstorms. To compensate, Lake Phalen was unplugged from its natural watershed by walling off the old tunnel at Ocean Street, and Phalen Creek was made to drain into a wholly new tunnel, the Beltline tunnel which runs mostly under Johnson Parkway and discharges to the Mississippi River near the former St. Paul Fish Hatchery." 

Brick  refers to the two now mostly underground streams, Trout Brook and Phalen Creek on the east side of St. Paul as the Urban Nile or the Industrial Mesopotamia. They are not the most flattering nicknames. In his book, he describes his wet-suit journeys through the underground sewer systems that now replace the creek’s above ground journey. Sometimes harrowing, always fascinating, his tales get at the underbelly of Phalen Creek’s meandering story.  The size of the area that drains stormwater through this system is the prompt for many of the Watershed Districts efforts to clean the water upstream before it enters this maze of pipes. 

If you’d like to learn more about Phalen Creek’s underground history, Brick’s book is a fascinating read. Then take a jaunt through Swede Hollow where the creek is day-lighted and finish this visit off with a trip to Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary where the creek once flowed.

You won’t be disappointed.